You’ll understand when you read about the recent remarks by Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund. Here’s what the UK-based Guardian reported.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde’s uncompromising description of Greeks as rampant tax-dodgers has provoked a furious reaction in Athens less than a month before the crisis-hit country heads to the polls. With Greece mired in ever-worsening recession, with cutbacks and tax rises, the IMF managing director was rounded on by almost the entire political establishment. In an interview with the Guardian, Lagarde said she had more sympathy for victims of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa than Greeks hit by the economic crisis. “As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax.” Evangelos Venizelos, the Greek socialist leader, who met Lagarde several times as finance minister, accused her of “insulting” Greeks. “Nobody has the right to humiliate the Greek people during the crisis, and I say this today specifically addressing Ms Lagarde … who with her stance insulted the Greek people.”

So what should we think of this fight?

Well, I agree with Lagarde that the people of sub-Saharan Africa are more deserving of sympathy. After all, the Greek people repeatedly voted to steal money from their fellow citizens by using the coercive power of government, so it’s hard to feel much sympathy for people who thought that scam could continue indefinitely.

Though, to be fair, the people in sub-Saharan Africa would probably make the same venal choices if they had democracy.

Top IMF Moocher

On the other hand, I am nauseated by Lagarde’s comments about tax evasion. She is one of the world’s biggest leeches, with annual compensation of more than $550,000 that is diverted from the productive sector of the economy. And, adding insult to injury, her bloated salary is tax free. So we have the grotesque spectacle of a pampered international bureaucrat whining and moaning that ordinary people aren’t paying enough tax.

Keep in mind, by the way, that the tax burden in Greece is more than 40 percent of economic output (see annex table 26), which (at least to normal people) shows that the problems is that the Greek government is spending far too much.

Leading Greek Kleptocrat

Then we have the sniveling comments of Greece’s former socialist finance minister, who says the Greek people have been “insulted.” Well, they should be insulted. And mocked. And berated. After all, these are the people who voted for one kleptocrat government after another.

Only in politics and the bamboozling dynamics of the ballot box is the Perpetual Motion Machine revived, i.e. recipes which after an initial stimulus promise prosperity without effort, wealth without exceptional productivity. Comfortable insulation from mediocrity under a centrally thought all-knowing master plan, where every morning exceptional people get out of their house and leave their family, leisure and hobbies to go work for distant others a few streets away, a few neighborhoods away, a few cities away, a sew states away, a few countries away. The dream of prosperity thorough flattening of the natural effort-reward curves lives on… and the now speedy decline of the Western World is accelerating.

Greece is living through the middle chapters of the Gospel of Mandatory Collectivism, also known as the Book of Hope and Change. Americans seem to have liked the cover and are now reading the introduction. It’s one of those books that you cannot put down once you start reading. But the scary parts are yet to come, though some are already hearing the ominous music in the background. You are now living into the decline.

Perhaps and ironically, as in times past, when it comes to the western world, Greece is not behind, but ahead… only that few western world voter lemmings realize that this is the 21st century and things are moving faster than ever. Changes, ascents and declines that once used to take hundreds of years will now conclude in a mere couple of decades. The Western Voter Lemmings think they have time, they think it’s their children’s problem. Alas…

In light of the continuing cry for
less government and more freedom,
what does Dan Mitchell think about personally suggesting
that a leading conservative think tank, (Cato?),
consider certifying it’s leadership
by standing on it’s espoused principles,
and therefore reject
it’s government dependency
under the tax benefits of 501(c)(3)?

And yes, just as I know Dan Mitchell knows, there are
many underlying issues that would arise from this
suggestion. But the question here is simply whether
he would entertain the notion of this suggestion.

I love it when the leftists keep saying that austerity failed in europe so we should not try it here. What they ignore is the european austerity was tax hike austerity. Spending austerity, which would have worked, has never been tried.

Default: Coming to a circus theater near you. See crystal ball for dates and times.
It is the one and only method that will both chastise and drive home the necessary epiphianic moment to all three ringmasters of this circus; the creditors, the distributors, the entitlees.
They all know it and each ringmaster will direct their own act in a furious bid to discredit the other two. Its not the ending they seek to shape but the laying of blame. For all intents and purposes they are resigned to their fates: default.

[…] I have the same attitude about the fiscal fight in Europe. On one side, you have “austerity” proponents of higher taxes. On the other side, you have Keynesians who think a higher burden of government spending will produce growth. […]

[…] than they were five years ago. But no, there hasn’t been more crisis because direct bailouts (by the IMF) and indirect bailouts (by the ECB) have propped up the fiscal regimes of various European […]

[…] P.S. I can’t resist adding a depressing footnote. The traditional cost of bad policy is weak growth, which means living standards increase at a much slower pace. But there’s something else happening in the world that we have to add to the mix. The global change in demographics, combined with the tax-and-transfer welfare states that exist in most nations, are a very dangerous recipe. My fear is that we may move from a world where the “traditional cost” of “weak growth” may be replaced by a world with a “new cost” of “macro instability.” In other words, in the absence of reform, more and more countries are going to face Greek-style fiscal and economic chaos. Moreover, the magnitude of the mess will be so large that the International Monetary Fund and other entities won’t be able to provide bailouts (which is how Greece is being propped up). […]